It's a Long Way Back From Hell (Tag: Lucifer/Trinity/Open)

[_call_me_snake_]

Snake leaned heavily on his bike looking up the tall building toward the 13th floor. He was up there somewhere and ten to one already knew they were coming. Snake tossed his cigarette away looking down the street. The building made him uncomfortable. When he stood near it his hair always prickled on his neck like someone was watching him and he

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[_call_me_snake_]

Snake had been screaming so long he had made his own ear begin to ring. Long before Trinity even showed up he had crumpled on the ground near the crashed glider. The twisted aircraft still smoldered before him but he had collapsed next to the body of a white haired woman. Her throat had been slit and her clothes ripped. Every time he came to this place he saw her dead and it never got any easier. He still lost control when he found himself on the battlefield. The burning buildings and the crashed gliders. It was one of his biggest regrets and every time he returned from this place he imagined Lucifer did this to him on purpose in efforts to drive him crazy. Who else would be cruel enough to make him relive Leningrad and all of the pain for eternity

[trinity_matrix3]

Her eyes flew open when she heard what she thought were Snake’s screams. She gasped lightly at the images in front of her, already startled enough to be in hell, almost as if she had expected this whole thing to be a ruse. Trinity was feeling the shock that one might experience when they learned that a loved one has suddenly died. Something inside of her was dying, but not without a fight.

‘Bullshit.’ She muttered. ‘This isn’t real.’ Trying to convince herself she looked around reading the code of her surroundings. When it read almost like the Matrix her stomach twisted and churned as if she were going to be sick.Maybe it’s a trick. Maybe it’s Lucifer. Maybe it’s just like one of our training programs you can be downloaded into. But did that mean that it was any less of a reality?Walking towards the screams it looked like she had stumbled into the middle of a war zone. Climbing over debris she looked at the burnt out shell of buildings and the crumpled glider on the ground. Walking further she saw Snake sitting next to a women’s body

[_call_me_snake_]

He refused to look at her again to see that torn body. All he could think was maybe he could have stopped it, maybe things would have been different. Snake heard her voice through the ringing his own voice had caused but he couldn't open his eye.

I don't want to see it anymore.

[trinity_matrix3]

'This is your hell', she said softly suddenly realising what she was looking at. Who was this women which was causing him to relive this pain? Thinking it was best not to ask now she kneeled down placing a hand on his shoulder and another on his arm, gripping it tightly to pull them up.

'Okay, let's keep moving.' She had no idea whether they would be able to get away from image of the women. Trinity was so confused, was this a projection of Snake's fear's, guilt and regret or was this all really here?

[_call_me_snake_]

Snake held on to Trinity as she pulled him to his feet. He still didn't open his eye. He was afraid to.

Past the left side of the glider.

His voice was broken and strained but he encouraged her to walk. It wasn't the battlefield that bothered him it was that one body. Once they were past ithe could open his eye and not worry for his sanity. He spoke a gain a little more sure as they started to walk.

We're in Leningrad.

[trinity_matrix3]

She said nothing but began to walk them towards past the left side of the glider at a steady but brisk pace to get as much distance between him and the women that she could. She was satisfied when she looked back and was not able to see the women anymore.

'Okay.'

Trinity nodded. She knew about a human history but was not apart of it that long. She had fought different wars but looking around her the devastation of war looked all the same.

'The mission went wrong?'

[_call_me_snake_]

Snake openend his eye finally. He still didn'tlike what he saw but it was better if that can be said about war.

No, we were set up by the government. There was a painful bitterness to his voice and he started to walk again. Our deaths were to fuel the war-fire back home. Best damned squadron in the Airforce taken out sure to get the homefront irate as hell. Things were worse after the mission, worse then what you see.

He just kept walking through the debris toward a line of trees in the near distance.

[trinity_matrix3]

Looking around she read the code again. It was too similiar to the Matrix for her to be comfortable. Terrible thoughts ran through her mind and she wondered if Neo ever tried to read Zion...he would have told her. Maybe he never second guessed it wasn't real and he never attempted to look behind the rock and steel of Zion. But if hell was a reality...or Matrix, couldn't that mean that Zion was too?

Stop it Trinity

'Where are we going now?' she asked looking forward. 'Does hell have many levels?'

[_call_me_snake_]

Snake froze and looked at Trinity for a moment. He hadn't even thought to explain it. He had always been the one who didn't know where he was going. Now the tables were turned. He climbed up on a pile of rubble and sat looking out on the horizon. There was a grass knoll in the distance with snow and three huge crosses beyond it the ocean. Snake sighed and motioned for Trinity to join him.

Guess I got to explain some of this bullshit huh?

[trinity_matrix3]

Joining him, Trinity looked back to the war fields of Leningrad and then forward to the snow and crosses. There was a progressive change in events but there was no ripple in the coding to suggest they were walking into a different program.

'Yes.'Trinity furrowed her brow and peered out to the crosses again. 'Is this more of your hell?'

[_call_me_snake_]

Yes and no. He nodded to the area of snow. That is my girl and I be crucified. It is something that I still have a chance to change maybe unlike this. It is her hell but now it is part of mine as well. Snake looked toward the trees they had been walking toward and then back to the ocean. Beyond that is the end of the world. Nothing comes back from the end. If we wlked there we'd be lost for ever in whatever that Hell might be.

Snake sighed heavily looking down at the ground below.

I am going to take you to your Hell. We can walk freely in anything you have experienced or dreamed to now. To walk in things that have yet to happen is fucking suicidal we could get trapped.

Snake pointed at the treeline. Mine ends there. Where my glider crashed. Once we step into those woods we will be in whatever it is you should see.

Snake stood nervously. I don't want to linger. We aren't the only things here.

[trinity_matrix3]

'Crucified? By who?' Do people still do that to each other, crucify people. It was something she thought the Romans did a very, very long time ago. Looking past into the deep vastness of what Snake called the end of the world, Trinity saw a glitch in the programming, but she sure as hell didn't want to be lost in that glitch.

'My hell?' She choked out weakly. He could show her what her hell looked like? Wasn't she in it right now by being trapped in the Matrix. She took a deep breath and nodded in agreement while slowly starting to walk in towards the woods. Somehow she doubted that the tree's would be there for long. Although she made each step, her legs were starting to feel like jelly. Seeing her own hell was not something she anticapted she was going to do.

'What else is here?'

[_call_me_snake_]

No they don't but she is from Ancient Greece and I'm a heritic. Snake frowned. There was a glitch out there and Snake knew why. It was him giving up to Hell when is family was.. would be.. could be killed.

If you want. It will be the easiest place to take you.

He slowed to walk with her. He knew that feeling. THe first time he came here it was to save someone else.

Once you step over the edge of the burn things will change so be prepared. Snake stopped again.

Everyone's Hell is here. Places of endless torture. Lucifer's palace. The place of the first fall. I have no fucking idea really what all is here.

[trinity_matrix3]

Trinity stopped as well, probably for a different reason. She just realised that she was to become vulnerable. Snake would would see it all. Her hell. She was not sure what it looked at but it could not be good and she wasn't sure that she wanted someone to share her torment. Having seen his though and having asked him to re-live those horrible memories so that he could bring her here, she thought she owed him that much.

Pressing on she didn't stop again until she was nearly past the last thing on fire. Looking at Snake she sighed. 'We didn't come here for nothing.' Trinity took one last step before she suppressed the scream in her throat.

The tree's disapeered and the everything around them was burning. Trinity leaned on the stone wall behind her for support coughing as the fumes and smoke started to choke her. Zion. The images she thought she was spared because she died. It was the day Zion was attacked by the machines. Snake and her were on a ledge overlooking the docking bay of the city, watching as the war unfolding below.

[_call_me_snake_]

No we didn't. Snake said it with cocky confidence if only to help her feel stronger. He followed and almost stepped off the edge of the cliff due to shock. He'd never seen anything like this. The huge cavern, the things with the tenticles like giant metal squid it all ovewhelmed him and he stared wide-eyed at Trinity.

Where the Hell are we?

Snake almost chuckled at that question because it was stupid. Of course he knew where they were. They were in Hell, her Hell. Snake continued to watch the scene and he felt a hopelessness that he had in his own visions they had just left. Perhaps that was what Hell really was "futility".

[trinity_matrix3]

'Outside the Matrix. In the thing that I told you was...my reality. This is Zion, the last human city, and it's being destroyed.' She couldn't swallow, couldn't breathe, all she could do was watch the Sentinals swoop down from the air. 'God, did they make it?', she asked barely above a whisper. 'I was fighting..Neo and I had gone to the href="http://mczwarno2.brinkster.net/machine%20city_crop.jpg">Machine City try to save Zion